Serial Number: 19918
Title: Devil With Hitler, The (1942)
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Country of Origin: US
Genre: Private Gallery - The 40's
Subject:
Size: INSERT 14x36
Condition: VF/EX
Card Number: N/A
Price: $NOT FOR SALE
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| Actors/Actresses: Bobby Watson, Joe Devlin, George E. Stone |
| Notes: Director: Gordon Douglas; A comedy Short(44 min) from Hal Roach Studios that places Hitler, Mussolini, and Japan’s Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, that receives here the belittling nickname of Suki Yaki, in a variety of ridiculous situations reminiscent of the Three Stooges. The question of whether any subject is fair game for the barbs of mockery on the alter of comedy has been debated for decades. In this case, is it right to find humor and laugh at frivolous shenanigans, while all the while atrocities and carnage are being perpetrated elsewhere in the world by the very same individuals being made sport of here in this movie? One of the explanations, or mitigating factors, defending this or similar movies, is that people in the United States, makers of this movie as well as the viewing audience, simply did not know, at the time, the extent or the gravity of the situation. This may be so, but it is interesting to note that even in 1942 there were movie critics who felt the movie was inappropriate. For example, T.S. of The New York Times felt that it was “malodorous a film as has been placed on a Broadway screen in many a month”, exhibiting “an appalling disregard for the temper of these times”, and “an affront to public taste and the public interest”. |
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